Nancy Mc­Far­lane, a polit­ic­al in­de­pend­ent, has been may­or of Raleigh since 2011. A former City Coun­cil mem­ber and a phar­macist, Mc­Far­lane launched a com­pany that provides med­ic­a­tion in­fu­sions to at-home pa­tients with chron­ic ill­nesses. She cam­paigned for the may­or’s of­fice on a plat­form of smart plan­ning, cit­ing North­ern Vir­gin­ia—where she grew up—as an ex­ample of un­wise urb­an policy. She re­cently spoke with Na­tion­al Journ­al about lead­ing one of the na­tion’s most de­sir­able cit­ies. An ed­ited tran­script of that con­ver­sa­tion fol­lows.

Q: Every time you see one of these lists of the best places to live or best places to raise a fam­ily, Raleigh is al­ways near the top. What’s go­ing on?

A: I think the com­munity has done an ex­cel­lent job of plan­ning what they want to be. It’s really been a col­lab­or­at­ive ef­fort. There are just so many pieces that go in­to it. Geo­graph­ic­ally, we’re halfway between the moun­tains and the beach. We have three ma­jor uni­versit­ies in the re­gion. We have the Re­search Tri­angle Park. We’re the [state] cap­it­al, but we do not have any one ma­jor in­dustry. So if something starts to go down, there’s enough di­versity in our eco­nom­ic base to cov­er it. We’ve been very mind­ful of how we look. We’ve put a lot of in­vest­ment in­to our parks and gre­en­ways.

I think fun­da­ment­ally what it boils down to—es­pe­cially now with a more glob­al­ized eco­nomy—is if a busi­ness is look­ing to re­lo­cate some­where, they have to be where people want to live.

Q: Tech­no­logy gives people more mo­bil­ity and more choices. Are you say­ing that qual­ity of life is­sues aren’t just about life­style, but also about at­tract­ing and keep­ing busi­ness?

A: I own a busi­ness. You’ve got to have the work­force, wheth­er you are hir­ing new gradu­ates or ex­per­i­enced work­ers. This area really ap­peals to a very wide range of in­di­vidu­als. The arts and cul­ture scene is amaz­ing. We’ve got a lot of en­tre­pren­eurs. There’s a lot of sup­port here for en­tre­pren­eurs. A lot of it is the tech in­dustry. There’s a lot of op­por­tun­ity in town.

Q: This stuff feeds on it­self.

A: It does, but you can’t ever take it for gran­ted.

Q: Do you ap­proach eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment as a re­gion, or do you com­pete with cit­ies like Durham and Greens­boro?

A: We’re like sib­lings. We’re happy when each oth­er does well, but secretly we want to do the best. We want mom to like us best. We want to grow. But I would nev­er try to take a busi­ness from Durham to come here. Some of it is chas­ing com­pan­ies, some of it is field­ing in­quir­ies. We have highest per cap­ita of Ph.D.s in the coun­try, we have a very well-edu­cated work­force. Al­though once in a while, I get com­ments like: “I just moved here and I love it, but can you keep any­body else from mov­ing here?”

Q: You just an­ti­cip­ated my next ques­tion. How do you make sure you don’t have clogged high­ways and sprawl and over­taxed schools and everything else that comes from growth?

A: To me, it’s all about the plan. And I think a big piece of that is go­ing to be re­gion­al plan­ning. I grew up in Ar­ling­ton, Vir­gin­ia. I get it. We already have a line from Raleigh to Cary, [N.C.,] to Apex, [N.C.]—even­tu­ally, it’s go­ing to be one big blob. Trans­port­a­tion to me is key. We’re look­ing at a planned re­gion­al light rail even­tu­ally, which really opens up the po­ten­tial of the re­gion. Noth­ing pro­duces eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment like rails in the ground.

Q: How to you bal­ance the in­terests of your urb­an res­id­ents versus your sub­urb­an res­id­ents?

A: I don’t think it will ever be one or the oth­er. It de­pends on where you are in your life. If you are 25 and you just got a job and you’re hanging out down­town, then you want one thing. If you’re 35, and you have two kids, you might want an­oth­er. I do know that the largest seg­ment that is grow­ing is single-oc­cu­pancy house­holds. Where are they go­ing to want to live? It’s all about op­tions. It’s not about one or the oth­er. That’s the great thing about cit­ies. The real chal­lenge is get­ting this to not be­come just like the places every­one moved here to get away from.

Q: Is there an­oth­er city that you emu­late?

There is no city, hon­estly, that I would like us to be a lot more like. But we do have a great mu­sic scene. I would really like us to own that, like Aus­tin, [Texas,] has.

"Chuck Rosenberg, the acting head of the Drug Enforcement Agency who has found himself and his agency at odds with the Trump administration in recent months, told staff members Tuesday that he is planning to step down from his post." The Obama administration holdover will step down on October 1.

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HAD BEGUN TO PUBLICLY CRITICIZE TRUMP

Sen. Corker to Retire

1 hours ago

THE DETAILS

Another Republican member of Congress is showing himself out the door. After much thought, consideration and family discussion over the past year, Elizabeth and I have decided that I will leave the United States Senate when my term expires at the end of 2018,” said Sen. Bob Corker in a statement. The Tennessean has served since 2006.

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NOT ILLEGAL, BUT MUST BE FORWARDED TO WORK ACCOUNTS

At Least 6 WH Advisors Used Private Email Accounts

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THE LATEST

Jared Kushner, Stephen Bannon, Reince Priebus, Gary Cohn, Stephen Miller, and Ivanka Trump sent or received some emails on personal accounts that related to White House business. "Officials are supposed to use government emails for their official duties so their conversations are available to the public and those conducting oversight. But it is not illegal for White House officials to use private email accounts as long as they forward work-related messages to their work accounts so they can be preserved."

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SAYS CONTACTS WERE “BENIGN”

Stone Releases Correspondence with Guccifer 2.0

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"Roger Stone, a longtime friend and adviser to Donald Trump, released correspondence Tuesday" with the online hacker known as Guccifer 2.0 , which "U.S. intelligence agencies said was used by Russian government-linked entities to distribute embarrassing information about Democrats during the 2016 election. The disclosures came in a 47-page opening statement made available to reporters in advance of Mr. Stone’s Tuesday appearance in front of the House Intelligence Committee." Stone called his contacts with Guccifer "limited" and "benign."

Source:

PRIEBUS, SPICER, HICKS, MCGAHAN

Mueller Could Start Interviewing White House Figures This Week

1 hours ago

THE LATEST

"Special counsel investigators could start interviewing current and former White House staff as soon as later this week regarding the Russian probe, two sources familiar with the matter tell CNN. One source cautioned it is still being worked out with Robert Mueller's office and said it might be delayed until next week." Among those who could have a sit-down with the special prosecutor: former chief of staff Reince Priebus, former press secretary Sean Spicer, communications director Hope Hicks, White House counsel Don McGahn, communications adviser Josh Raffel and associate counsel James Burnham.